In His Mother's Eyes
by Aislinn Carter
Summary: After struggling with what the Horcrux revealed to him, Ron has a long overdue HearttoHeart with his mother. Canon, post DH but preepilogue.


I don't own Harry Potter. I really, really, REALLY wish I did.

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_"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter…"_

Ron sat watching in the kitchen as his mother cooked furiously, the plumes of smoke clouding over her assortment of pots and pans obscuring his view of her. He caught a glimpse of red here and there, but mostly, all he could see of her was her denim covered legs. She hummed to herself as she cooked, and he could see her arms protruding from the cloud like disembodied hands of the Gods, adding a pinch or a dash where it was needed. He recognized the tune she hummed; she sang it to all of them when they were children.

His mother had never been a great beauty – although she was quite pretty - , and until recently she had been rather dumpy, but the one thing that really stood out about her - aside from her fantastic cooking – was her singing. When Ron was very small and couldn't sleep, only a few bars of a lullaby sung in his mother's clear, warm voice could have him in dreamland until morning. He remembered that now, as he prepared what he had been planning to ask her for months, ever since the war ended and You-Know-Who had been vanquished.

"Ron? Are you still there, dear?"

"Yeah Mum, I'm right here."

"What time did Ginny say she and Harry would be back?"

"By seven," Ron said quietly.

"I just think it's so wonderful about the two of them. I mean, I understand what happened last summer…now, at least. I can't say I wasn't disappointed when Harry broke it off with her…well, I was crushed, naturally. I mean, who wouldn't want Harry Potter as a son-in-law?"

"Well they're not quite planning the wedding yet, Mum," Ron said irritably.

He saw her wave a dismissive hand in his general direction. "Oh, that's how it is in our world, dear. People get married young. Why, Harry's parents were barely nineteen when they got married, if I remember correctly. It's different than the Muggles. I'm sure it'll be only a matter of time before they make an announcement," she paused, and he saw her hand still over a pot. "And only a matter of time before we hear an announcement from _you_," she said slyly.

Ron felt his face turn red. "_Mum_," he hissed. "Don't say things like that in front of Hermione!"

"Well, why not? It's the inevitable conclusion, isn't it? Well, _isn't_ it?"

"Maybe…I dunno…" Ron mumbled.

"Oh, how wonderful to marry your childhood sweetheart! It's just like your father and me, well, we were friends from the start, right from First year! We were barely out of Hogwarts when we were married…and I never regretted it, getting married so young, not once. But then again, things were different. Maybe it's better, now, to take time to really get to know each other, to really enjoy your life, live it day by day. Not have to worry about tomorrow…" her voice trailed off, and Ron felt a sudden pang for her.

He knew she was probably thinking of Fred. He knew that likely no more than a day went by without her thinking of him, and honestly, he couldn't imagine it being any different for any of them. It had been a few months since the fall of You-Know-Who, and in those months, they had all done a lot of mourning. In the first few hours after Harry defeated him, the Great Hall had rang out with celebration and tears, but gradually the euphoria had faded as the survivors remembered their fallen. Ron, Hermione and Harry had left Gryffindor Tower after a sandwich and a quick nap to find families sobbing over bodies of loved ones and others milling around lending comfort. Voldemort's body was gone; they would learn later that the teachers had taken it to be burned, the ashes thrown into the Black Lake. It was a far more somber atmosphere than they had left behind an hour or so ago. Harry gravitated to where a newly arrived Andromeda Tonks lay next to her daughter and son-in-law's bodies, a small bundle in her arms and her body shaking with hysterical tears. Ron, followed by Hermione, walked slowly to his family.

He had seen it happen. He knew Fred was dead. But it didn't change the fact that he didn't _want_ to know. He had nearly been able to forget. But now there it was, slapping him right in the face. They hadn't been able to grieve properly when it happened. Their reactions hadn't been whole. But now, with nothing else to distract them, Ron watched in horrified fascination as he saw his brother George cry for the first time in childhood, clutching his twin's body to him and sobbing with an intensity Ron had never witnessed. It was as though George's soul were being torn apart, and really, and he supposed that's what it was. His mother held on to both of her boys, her weeping competing with George's and she rocked her twins. Their father had his head on his wife's back and his arms wrapped tightly around his only daughter. Ron had never, ever seen Ginny cry. She was a tough one, his sister. But now, she had her head buried in her father's shoulder as her own shoulders shook. She clung to Arthur as though he were a lifeline.

Fleur was sitting at a table above this tableau, and Bill had his head in her lap. He clutched her hands to his face as he, too, shook with sobs. Fleur's pretty face was swollen and red, tears pouring in a river down her puffy cheeks. Charlie and Percy sat next to them, their red heads buried in their hands.

Ron had never seen his family exhibit this level of grief. He felt it well up inside him suddenly, now that there was nothing there to distract it. He looked on his dead brother and he felt the grief bubble up, choking him, making his throat raw and his eyes explode with tears. His knees buckled suddenly as the force of it hit him, and Hermione, her own breath wispy with tears, held his arm and guided him the rest of the way to his family.

His sister glanced up as he approached, and opened her arms to him. He laid his head on her shoulder, and Hermione laid her head on his, and the three of them lay wrapped in the comfort of Arthur's shaking arms. Ron felt as if his heart were literally breaking. His brother, Fred, whom he loved, whom he admired and damn near idolized, was gone forever. Forever, it was such a final word. He had never experienced a forever kind of loss, not really. Not like this.

He would never see Fred again.

A cynical sort of person might not see the difference between Fred and George. After all, they were nearly the same person. Mightn't Ron just _pretend_ George was Fred? But no, the twins were truly different, despite the appearance of having one mind. The truth was, they had two minds, but one soul, and Ron knew that George would never be complete again. But really, none of them would.

Harry would join them shortly, being welcomed into the huddle of Weasley's and being wrapped in Ginny's arms and for a rare time, wrapping his arms around Ron. They all shed tears that day, more than they could count. Tears that choked them and wrung them dry and left them breathless. And the days ahead would be hard, harder than any before, and the Weasley's would not be the same. There was an empty seat at their table and an empty bed over the shop in Diagon Alley and an empty place beside George that would always be held for Fred. Molly would lose too much weight and her hair would be limp and she would wear jeans and baggy sweatshirts and just not care. Ginny would spend her days locked in her room with Harry, or at Andromeda's with Harry, or off in a field by herself somewhere, unable to face the grief that permeated the air at home. George would find solace in his former Quidditch team, who would come to the burrow nearly every evening after George moved back in, taking him for a night out to help him remember that he was human, or just to sit around and reminisce about Fred, and to sit in silent comfort as George sobbed and his heart broke all over again. Eventually, he was able to move back to the shop, and Lee moved in with him to help him out for a spell. And his friends took him out still all the time. They would not forget him, and they would not let him forget himself.

So now, Ron sat in the kitchen with his thin mother who had abandoned her maternal dresses and robes in favor of Muggle bumming out clothes, as Hermione called them, but could still cook to save her life and was making a feast to rival all past feasts. Tonight was Harry's eighteenth birthday. They had missed so many birthdays over the past year, and tonight, they were making them all up. Ron's, Hermione's, Percy's, every birthday that had gone uncelebrated as they fought and bled and some of them died. Tonight, they were going to have a happy occasion and really celebrate the end of the war.

But before they did that, Ron needed to talk to his mother. He needed to put a demon to rest that had given him no peace.

He could still remember Riddle's taunting words from the locket. He still heard them in his nightmares. Many of the fears which Riddle cut open for Harry to see Ron had resolved. There was no question in his mind now that Harry and Hermione's relationship was the brother-sister relationship they had both been denied. Both were only children, and both had a best friend who had no idea what it was like to be an only child. Instinctively, they had turned to each other to find that sort of experience, that sort of bond. Harry loved Ginny, of that there was no doubt. And though he had his own doubts in the beginning, even a fool like Ron could see that Hermione had eyes for no one but him. In fact, in retrospect, he could see that she'd had eyes for him for a long time. And he had always felt the same.

But there was still one more issue to be worked out.

Molly appeared form the cloud of smoke, wiping her hands on a towel and shaking her hair out of her face. "Well, that will have to simmer for a bit. Dinner will be ready in an hour, Ron. Why don't you go find Dad and see if he needs help?" she rolled her eyes. "The last thing we need if for him the blow up that motor scooter of Sirius'."

"Motor cycle, Mum."

"Whatever it is, in your father's hands it's a health hazard."

"Actually, Mum, I was hoping I could talk to you for a bit."

Molly's mother radar perked up and she looked at Ron in concern. "Is everything all right? Problems with Hermione?" She sat down in the chair across form him.

"No, that's not it. This is going to sound so silly. I know the answer, I just need to hear it from you."

"Well, what is it?"

"Do you promise to tell the truth? Even if you think it'll upset me?"

Molly smiled softly at her son. "If it means that much to you, yes, I'll tell the truth. It will be hard for me, what with me telling fibs all over town…"

Ron groaned. "Mum."

"All right, all right. Witches' honor."

Ron shifted in his seat. "Mum…were you disappointed, when I was born? Were you mad?"

Molly stared at her son for a moment, then her face hardened. "Mad? Was I _mad_?" Yes Ron, I was terribly upset that after nine months and ten hours of labor, I had a baby. It was completely unexpected, a terrible inconvenience. I already had five children, you see, so of course I was ridiculously unprepared for another one." Molly stood up abruptly, her face a mask of outrage. "How could you ask me if I was disappointed? None of my children disappoint me!"

"Mum, please sit down. Let me explain." Ron said softly.

Molly continued to glare at him but she took her seat. "Where is this coming from?"

"Mum…you wanted a _girl_. You had five boys already. We know you wanted a girl. And I was another boy."

Molly's face softened. "Oh, Ron…Ron, I didn't care that you weren't a girl. Not really. Oh, of course I had hoped it might be a girl, because I did want a daughter, ever since I was a young girl myself. But I was never upset as each boy came along. I would have continued having children even if you were a girl. I simply wasn't ready to stop yet."

"Mum," Ron said in disbelief. "Not to insult you or Dad, but we never had a lot of money. Why would you keep having kids?"

"Did you have food to eat?" Molly said sharply. "Did you have a roof over your head? An education? Did you have love? Harry may have a lot of money, and his Muggle relatives may have lived in a nice house, but was he loved? Was he treated properly? No, Ron, he was not. Draco Malfoy may have a lot of money, but his parents nearly gave him up in their allegiance to You-Know-Who. Ron, you had three full meals a day and presents every Christmas and birthday, and built in friends to play with and nothing but love your whole life. Did you lack for anything, really? Was a Firebolt and new robes really that important in the grand scheme of things?"

Ron felt ashamed. "I'm sorry, Mum," he mumbled.

Molly sighed. "Look, people said it to me, some less tactfully than others. I knew we were stretching it thin with each child, but you know what, we were never in any real danger of not being able to care for any of you. So what, you had hand me downs. So what you didn't get every brand new toy on the market. You had other things, more important things. And when anyone was rude enough to comment on it to me, that's exactly what I said. Grandma Prewett, after the twins were born, asked me when I was planning to stop. You know what I told her? I said I would stop when I had no more love to give. I _love_ being a mother, Ron. When I was in school, all my girlfriends would dream about being a great Healer, or an Alchemist, or an Auror. I would dream about having a child grow inside of me, and holding my baby for the first time, and watching it take its first steps or say its first words. And I imagined a house full of love and laughter and clutter. This is the life I wanted, Ron. I wanted a lot of children. I wanted to be a mother."

"But you stopped," he said softly. "You stopped after Ginny. You stopped when you got a girl."

Molly was silent for a minute. She bit her lip. "Ron…Ron, how old am I?"

Ron frowned. "What? Mum, you know how old you-"

"Just tell me."

"Well, you'll be forty-nine, right?"

"Yes, that's right. I was thirty-two when I had Ginny. That's still young in terms of child bearing. I was twenty-one when I had Bill. In eleven years, I had seven children. One right after another. And even though I was still young when I had Ginny, all those children in such a short span of time took a toll on my body."

"I never thought of that."

"Well, you wouldn't have had cause to. Ginny's birth...was difficult. Of course, I was elated to have a girl. But the Healer advised we decide that our family was complete. I remember, I was holding Ginny, and he said to me, 'well, now you have your girl, you can stop now', just like that. I looked up at him and told him I didn't have all these babies just to randomly happen on a girl. He didn't believe me. He said regardless of the reasons, I should think carefully before having another baby, and to at least wait a few years to give my body a break."

"Well, you didn't have another baby."

Molly sighed. "Ron, I was pregnant again within four months."

Ron's mouth dropped open. "I don't remember that!"

"Well how would you? You were only one."

"But…well, where is it then?"

"Ron, I lost that baby," Molly said quietly. "That baby, and the two that followed. Three misses in four years. I simply wasn't going to be having another baby. Oh, but we _tried_ Ron, don't you see? I had my daughter, and I still wanted more, even if every baby after that was a boy. Even if I only had boys, and no daughters at all. I love all of you. None of you disappoint me. Ron, I loved you before you were born, and when they went to take you from me after you were born, to clean you and weight you and all of that, well I wouldn't let them! You can ask your father. They nearly had to sedate me to take you."

"Really?" Ron asked, pleased.

Molly reached across the table and took his hand. "Of course. It had been two long years since I'd had a baby. I was going through withdrawal."

Ron laughed. Then, his face grew serious again. "But…at the battle, with Bellatrix…the way you went after her after she nearly got Ginny…"

Molly's face turned sheet white. 'Do you think, after…after only an hour earlier, I lost my son – my _son_, Ron – who I gave life to and raised and loved and would have died for, do you think I wouldn't put myself in front of _any_ of you? Do you think that if her curse had nearly missed you, that I wouldn't have destroyed her as I did? Is that what you think?"

"I don't know what to think sometimes."

"I'll be honest, her death was more for Fred than for Ginny. I needed someone to pay."

"You're closer to Ginny."

"In a way. There's a different bond between a mother and daughter, Ron. I look at Ginny and I see myself as a young girl. Your father had that for himself in six ways. I have one. So yes, I am closer to Ginny. But in other ways, I'm closer to you boys. There's also a special bond between a mother and her son, same as a father and his daughter. But when it all comes down to it, Ron, we're all family and we would, I think, all die for each other. No matter who Bellatrix almost killed that day, she still would have died by my hand. Any of us would have wanted to do it. Any of us would die for each other."

"We would," Ron said firmly. "I would die for you, Mum."

"And I wouldn't let you. I wouldn't let any harm come to my babies if I can help it. If I could have taken death from Fred, I would have done so, happily. I wish I could have."

"I wish I could have, too." He hesitated. "And you don't...you don't want to trade me for Harry?"

Molly shook her head. "I wouldn't trade any of my children. And why do you think I would trade you for Harry?"

"He's...he's famous and he's good at everything he does..."

"Oh, and you're not?"

"Not like Percy or Bill..."

"Who pulled Godric Gryffindor's sword out of an icy pool and saved Harry Potter's life?" she asked quietly. "Or wasn't that the story you all told me? Ron, Harry was famous for something he didn't remember and had no control over. He defeated You-Know-Who because he _had_ to, because You-Know-Who made it so. And he had help. Do you think if Harry's parents hadn't been killed, if he had grown up a normal boy with a normal family, that he would be any different from you? Harry is - just as you are - a brilliant wizard and I love him dearly. I love him as though I gave birth to him myself. I love him in his mother's stead because Harry doesn't _have_ a mother, and for that alone you should curb whatever jealousy you have of him. He may be famous, but his parents are dead, Ron, and he spent half his life, while he should have been enjoying growing up, he spent those years knowing the darkest wizard of our time was after him and was intent to kill him. Do you want to trade, Ron? Because I certainly wouldn't trade you for him and put you into that sort of danger. It killed me enough that Harry was living that life!" she sighed. "I made a promise, Ron. My brothers, before they died protecting Order of the Phoenix and their secrets, promised me that I would do what I could to protect the Potter's. They were already marked for death. I promised I would do what I could, and I honored that promise by protecting Harry in whatever way possible. I did much more than I promised, because I truly love him as my own. I wish he was my own, but I wouldn't want him to replace any of you! And I'm getting him anyway, aren't? He'll be my son anyway when he marries Ginny."

"Mum, you don't know-"

"When he married Ginny, Come now, dear, do you really think it won't come to that?"

"Yeah I guess that's where it's heading," Ron said grudgingly.

"And that upsets you why? It won't be any fun having your best mate as your brother?"

"Well...when you put it that way..."

"I wouldn't trade you for all the gold in Gringott's. Not any of you. And if I had to do it all over again, I'd still have each and every one of you. Did you know, you were the first one to walk? And the first to talk? Charlie beat you at teething, but you could talk before he could."

"I didn't know." Ron said happily.

"Well, I really should have told you. It's in your baby book."

"I have a baby book?"

"You all do. They're in the attic. We really should bring them down." Molly squeezed his hand. "So you see, Ron, I was happy with all my babies. And I was never disappointed that you were a boy. It gave me an excuse to have more! Nature only intended me to have seven children, but given the opportunity I would have had ten, twelve…maybe even fifteen!"

Ron made a face. "Seven is just fine with me. I like having my own room,"

Molly laughed. "Well, if you like having a room at all, you really should go help your father. If he blows up the house, we'll be sleeping in the tent."

Ron grinned and stood up. "Thanks, Mum." He started out of the room, then stopped, turning and loping back to her. He threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly, and she hugged him back just as tightly.

"I love you Ron, so very, very much," she whispered.

"I love you, too,"

"And I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of all you've done. You're the bravest man I know."

"And you're the bravest woman I know," he pulled back and gave her a watery smile. "After all, you did raise Fred and George,"

She laughed and wiped her eyes. "Go on, now. I'll call you when dinner is ready."

Ron grinned and left the room. As he walked outside to his father's garage, he thought about what his mother had just told him. And he realized something. Maybe he would never know his worth in the world. Maybe he would always be Harry Potter's sidekick. But at least he knew his worth in his mother's eyes. And that was really all that mattered.

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